SpaceX has made history. Again.
The spaceflight company founded by billionaire Elon Musk on Wednesday launched four private passengers into orbit on the first mission into space with a fully civilian crew.
A reusable Falcon 9 rocket carried by Jared Isaacman, a 38-year-old tech entrepreneur, Sian Proctor, a 51-year-old geoscientist, Chris Sembroki, a 42-year-old aerospace data engineer, and Hayley Arceneaux, 29. -old physician’s assistant, taken off shortly after 8 p.m. EDT of Cape Canaveral, Florida. The four-person crew will spend three days orbiting the Earth before re-entering the atmosphere and splashing into the Atlantic Ocean.
It’s not the first time private passengers have paid to fly into space, but the so-called Inspiration4 mission is the first expedition into orbit without any professional astronauts on board. Historical flight represents the next stage in the evolution of human space flight, as access to the cosmos expands beyond governments and their space agencies.
“The door is wide open,” Isaacman said as he and his crew members arrived into space.
The SpaceX rocket roared in the night sky from the same launch pad as NASA’s Apollo lunar missions, as well as the first and last flight of the space shuttle. During its ascent into orbit, crew members celebrated it excitedly and threw thumbs up as they cleared every important milestone.
Isaacman, the founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments, a Pennsylvania-based payment processing company, paid an unspecified amount for the three-day joyride to SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. The Inspiration4 mission is part of a charity fundraising initiative for St. John’s Children’s Research Hospital. Jude. In addition to giving $ 100 million to St. Jude, Isaacman gave the other three seats on Inspiration4 flight to his crew.
“That dream started ten months ago,” Isaacman said Tuesday at a previous conference. “We set out from the beginning to send a very inspiring message, no doubt what can be done in space and the possibilities that exist, but also what we can achieve here on Earth.”
According to SpaceX, the Crew Dragon spacecraft will orbit the planet 15 times a day from an altitude of nearly 360 miles, higher than the current orbits of the Hubble Space Station and Space Telescope.
The Inspiration4 mission will resemble SpaceX’s routine flights to the International Space Station, unless this time the capsule will not dock in the orbiting laboratory. As such, the company added a new glass dome to the top of the spacecraft for 360-degree views.
NASA was quick to congratulate the Inspiration4 team on Wednesday, piulant that the launch “represents a significant milestone in the quest to make room for everyone.”
The successful launch of the Inspiration4 mission is a key milestone for SpaceX and a benefit to the thriving space tourism industry. Two months ago, rival billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson launched themselves into the edge of space in vehicles developed by their respective aerospace companies. Although both flights during the summer were suborbital excursions, both Bezos Blue Origin and Branson’s Virgin Galactic plan to offer orbital joysticks for space tourists in the future.
These pioneering flights, for now, limited to those who can afford to spend millions of dollars on a ticket, could accelerate the expansion of private space flight, making space travel more regular and ultimately more affordable.
The first space tourist, American billionaire Dennis Tito, was launched into the International Space Station on an eight-day expedition in 2001. Tito reportedly paid $ 20 million to fly into advanced orbit in aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. So far, only seven civilians, including Titus, had paid to fly into space.
Arceneaux, a bone cancer survivor, now works at St. Jude; Sembroki is a veteran of the United States Air Force; and Proctor is a licensed pilot and former NASA astronaut candidate.
Proctor got his ticket into space through an online contest conducted by Shift4 Payments and Sembroki won his seat in a charity action to raise money for St. Jude.
Crew members have described their trip as a “humanitarian mission” and talked about how they hope to inspire people around the world.
“I want to thank everyone for all the support, encouragement and love,” Arceneaux tweeted on Wednesday, a few hours before release. “And thanks to @StJude for being the reason I’m here today. This is for everyone who has experienced something difficult and I know we all have it. Keep hoping there will be better days. “
The Inspiration4 mission is just the beginning of SpaceX’s ambitions to launch paying customers into orbit. Earlier this year, the company announced that the first crew of the private space station, led by former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría, will be launched into the orbiting laboratory in early 2022. In López-Alegría he will be joined by three men who pay $ 55 million each to spend eight days on the space station.
In 2018, SpaceX also said that Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, founder and CEO of fashion retailer Zozo, would be the first private passenger to fly around the Moon on a mission that is scheduled for 2023.